Even the Rain

There's a movie I watched recently that ren.der.ed. me. speechless man (and since then I've watched it three more times)... and I'm not even kidding you that it impacted me so much that I now consider it my favorite movie ever. It's called "Even the Rain" and it deals with the tension that exists between many of the indigenous people and the 'conquistadors' in much of all the Americas.

The movie is like "a movie within a movie within a movie" because it's about a group of actors who are filming a historical piece in Cochabamba Bolivia about the colonization of the indigenous people while they simultaneously do a documentary about what happens to their actors and their "extras" in real life.

Really ironic picture with Franklin and I and a colonizer statue 

...I don't want to explain the whole story, because it'd be cooler if you just watched the movie on your own, but basically, the craziest irony in it all is that the injustice and segregation that existed between the indigenous folk and the colonizers hundreds of years back - those injustices continue to exist today, in some form or another, between citizens of the higher classes towards people from the lower classes... especially against the  indigenous people for example, in countries like Peru and Bolivia.

There's a part where the actor who acts like the director (and yeah - I know that that sounds really contradictory but that's honestly the way it is)... the director feels like he's spent and he just wants to throw in the towel and quit filming, but his best friend who is charge of all the logistics approaches him and reminds him of the instance in which he realized that his friend had truly gotten inspired, and that this movie about showing the whole world the tragedy of the brutality and exploitation of the conquistadors towards the indigenous people - this movie was definitely worth finishing...

It was definitely worth finishing because the presently disheartened director had called his friend some seven years back at like two in the morning telling him that he had found a quote by a priest named Montessinos in the sixteenth century that was the first "voice of conscience" in the New World.

To this priest (and that, as if it were just one man against a whole empire), from a humble structure made of straw, it is attributed to have said the following:    
    

I am the voice of Christ from the desert of this island.
You are in mortal sin.
You live in it and in it you die.

One of the first pictures I took in San Jose (smiling Nukak man)

Why? Because of the cruelty and tyranny with which you use against these innocent people. Tell me this: with what right, and with what kind of justice do you so cruelly and horribly enslave these indigenous people who lived so peacefully in their lands? With what authority have you initiated such detestable wars with these people? With what right do you have them so oppressed? So exhausted and famished? They are dying because of our own fault! Or better said you are killing them! How could you be so asleep? How could you be so zoned out in this lethargic dream?... Look at the indians in their eyes! Are they not human? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not by chance obligated to love them as you would yourself?

Are we not by chance obligated to love our neighbor as we would ourselves (Mark 12:31)?

Yes, we are.

And I have never seen a better example of a group of people that are following through with this commandment so clearly - especially towards indigenous people - like the missionaries I got to serve and serve along with, when I lived in San Jose such as Johan and Lyda, Jack, Suso and Elga, America, Julio and Nadia, and Gustavo and Rosiris.

                    

           

              

...In contrast with the conquistadors that left it all in the sixteenth century in the pursuit of gold - these missionaries that I just mentioned left it all in the twenty and twenty first centuries as a result of the joy that the discovery of the love of Christ produced in them when they were compelled to share it with others (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

Amen!

Would you like to join in this mission as well?

Above: Working with people from "El Refugio" community the first time I met them in 2009.
Top Middle: Visiting the Perafan parents from the Refugio community with some of my best friends from San Jose in 2010.
Bottom Middle: Acting like a goof with Adrian Perafan in 2011
Bottom: Nathan Harris and I visiting Adrian and his brother in 2012
Remark: All of the people from the Refugio community are really cool and speak Spanish but currently have no missionary working with them. 

Peace On Earth?

A few months ago my uncle gave me a pretty neat little snap shot he had of my grandpa and I back when we were a little younger.

My grandfather has actually past away since then, as well as my grandma and my aunt, and so to keep my family’s history remembered, as well as to honor my grandpa’s request – my uncle passed on to me my grandfather’s WWII military uniform.

I think my grandfather and I had about the same height because the uniform actually fits pretty well, and especially his old satchel I use all the time. He used it to carry around his books and maps, and maybe a few emergency items to help his patients with; and I use it to carry around my Bible and my laptop... it’s kind of like the different tools we each use, albeit completely different centuries, to help us change the world.

Most masculine man purse ever.

I know that that’s a pretty big statement to the degree that some may say it's pretty presumptive, but I say it nonetheless because I really believe it's true - I really believe the message in the Bible can change the world.

And so yeah - anyways, the other thing that my uncle gave me as an important tool to remember history with was a compilation of pictures and documents that my grandfather saved from the war. All his pictures are in black and white, and I remember one summer day when I was like 12 that he sat me down on a purple couch in his living room so he could show me all those pictures.


In the picture to the left we're both sitting in the same living room that we sat at when he showed me the pictures, it's just that we're each about 10 years younger because there's no way that I could have possibly even started to understand those pictures at the age of 2.


They are really horrific pictures, more horrible than anything I have ever seen, but they are real, and that’s the point - that’s the reason for why my grandpa showed them to me. He showed them to me so that I wouldn't be someone who would ever deny reality, and specifically, he showed them to me so that I wouldn't ever be someone who would deny the reality of what happened in World War II.

Above: Bodies piled near crematorium upon my grandpa's arrival at Dachau May 1945. To the left: One of my Grandpa's patients with amputated leg (15 years old).  


I think my grandpa wanted me to be sensitive to injustice and to see an example, embodied in himself, of someone who stood up for the ruthless and terrible evils of the Holocaust. I think he wanted me to be conscious of and concerned for the helpless and the oppressed, and I think he wanted to show me that he was courageous, as I imagine he hoped that one day I would be, in helping victimized people if ever that day demanded it from me.

Maj. Jack Killins and Lucazewski by their jeep in Bacarat, France March 1945.

My grandfather* as well as many other men and women sacrificed a whole lot of themselves (and in some cases their very lives!), so that you and I could enjoy the freedoms that we have today. They did it because they saw a tremendous injustice and were not willing to let that injustice slide by as if it wasn't their problem.

Above: My grandfather with other members from Team Europe (In both pictures he's the tallest one standing) To the left: Maj. Killins and Ralph Demrau at Camp Twenty Grand.

I respect that, I admire it, and I'm grateful for it.

But taking this theme a little deeper though, why is it that injustice happens? How could the Nazis so unabashedly slaughter so many Jews just because they were Jews? How could they starve them and torture them and do experiments on them and incinerate them or suffocate them in gas chambers? How could German soldiers implement such terrible atrocities to a whole race simply because they were ordered to do so?



Prisoners to the left and bodies of deceased prisoners to the right shortly after the arrival of allied troops to Dachau.   

Even more than that, how could God allow it?

Where in the world was God when all these crazy monstrosities were going down?

Where in the world is God today when the big time hurricanes hit, when the Connecticut school shootings go down, when various North African nations endure months of famine on end, or when the North Indian slums never improve? Where is He when dictators rise, when genocides strike, when loved ones die, when relationships break, or when any number of other devastating things occur?

Why does God forsake us like that?

...To be honest, I don't know that I can fully give the complete answer to that question, but I know that the primary solution to it comes from another Jew who was born into this world about 2013 years ago. A Jew who saw a ruthless and terrible evil but was not willing to let that reality slide by as if it wasn't His problem.

While many Jews living in Europe during the mid 40's suffered tremendously under Hitler's Nazi Regime, there was another Jew around 33 A.D. that suffered even more tremendously under Herod's rule of the jurisdiction of Nazareth...

The intriguing thing though is that it wasn't even Jesus' excruciating crucifixion that was what made Christ's death so devastating. The worst suffering Jesus had to endure didn't come from any mortal man. The worst suffering that Christ had to endure came from God Himself... In a very real sense it was God that killed His Son (Isaiah 53:4,10).

...The only reason why pain and suffering exists in this world is because sin exists, yet that doesn't mean that God is not loving because the truth is that He has provided a remedy for it. God isn't aloof or oblivious to sin and suffering - it breaks His heart so much that He stared it straight in its face and dealt with it in the most radical way possible.

God dealt with sin by sending His own Son to be tortured and to die on the cross to free us from it (John 3:16). Jesus is no stranger to suffering, in fact that is what He is most known for (Isaiah 53:3-5,7).

I said earlier that I didn't think I could give a completely adequate answer as to why any number of devastating things occur in this world or as to why so much pain and sorrow exists, and I asked why God at times seems to so heartlessly forsake us in the midst of them - but actually I can't really ask that question because the truth is that He doesn't.

See, that was the whole point of why Jesus had to die. He had to be forsaken so that we could be forgiven; and we have been forgiven so that we would never be forsaken.

Jesus was the only one that could ever cry out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34), because He was the only one that was truly forsaken by Him... Notice though how Jesus in the midst of this total abandonment by His Father, still refers to Him as "My God", therefore implying that at the very epicenter of God's total abandonment of Him, He still believed in Him...

In Hebrews 13:5 God promises that He will never leave us or forsake us - and remember how in my last entry I was like making a really big deal about how we shouldn't think that we can ever help God?

Well the reason for that is because He's actually the one helping us, not the other way around. The very next verse in Hebrews 13 affirms that, because God will never leave us nor forsake us, "we can say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?'" (v. 6).

I know that this might be starting to get a little crazy for some of you, but if you've stuck with me for this long, let me just make one last analogy about these things that I've been saying in relation to a couple more songs that I've thought about recently.

There's this really curious line that Jon Foreman says at the end of "Gone" from Switchfoot's Beautiful Letdown album where he makes reference to a question that Bono supposedly asked at some point, and the lyrics go like this:

Every moment that we borrow

Brings us closer to the God

 Whose not short of cash

Hey Bono I'm glad you asked

Life is still worth living

...According to this Hebrews 13 passage that I've been mentioning - right before the author of Hebrews quotes the passage where God says, "Never will I leave you and never will I forsake you," the admonition that goes beforehand reads, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have."

So that fits in pretty nicely for what I just quoted from "Gone," but anyway... as for what Jon Foreman is referring to when he says,"Hey Bono I'm glad you asked" - I'm not entirely sure - but maybe what he's referring to has to do with the questions that Bono asks at the end of his song "Peace on Earth" from U2's album All that You Can't Leave Behind when he brings up all these really difficult issues of pain and sorrow and then asks this:

Jesus can you take the time

To throw a drowning man a line?

Peace on Earth

To tell the ones who hear no sound

Whose sons are living in the ground

Peace on Earth

I hear it every Christmas time

But hope and history won't rhyme

So what's it worth?

This peace on Earth?

...Basically I think that what Jon Foreman is saying is like, "Hey Bono, I'm glad you asked those questions. And yeah He can. And it's worth a lot. And life is still worth living."

...But then again that's really just what I think he's responding to. I'm just guessing because honestly I can't know for sure...

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:18-21  

* Although it's really tough to admit it; from an instance that I remember my dad talking to my grandpa about it a few years before he died, my grandfather had the same question that I've been talking about of "if God is so loving, how could he permit such tremendous suffering in this world?" ...And unfortunately to my knowledge, my grandfather never found that answer in Christ. 

    

       

Stand Up For Your Love!

Bono told me the other day to stand up for my love.

 

 

He told me to "Stand up in this dizzy world where a love sick eye can steal the view," and he asked if I can stand up to "Beauty, dictator of the heart," while also mentioning faith, hope, and love just like the apostle Paul does in 1 Corinthians 13.
 

After this, Bono goes on to say something really interesting. He goes on to say, "But while I'm getting over certainty, stop helping God across the road like a little old lady."
 

And that really caught my ear, you know?
 

It caught my ear and I started thinking a lot about it and obviously I can't know for sure what Bono intended when he said that, but maybe what he's saying is something like, "yeah, definitely - faith, hope, and love are the most important things to stand up for" (and I think Bono would agree with Paul on the assertion that the most important virtue of them all is love (1 Corinthians 13:13)), but then, right after that, he's like: "but in the certainty of doing so, please 'Stop helping God across the road like (you would) a little old lady.'"  

 

 

Awesome movie clip of an old woman crossing a street

 

...That's super interesting to me because I would like to say that standing up for my faith, hope, and love in God is something that I'm really set on - it's something that I really consider to be the most important things to stand up for in life!... but then, in the midst of it, it's kind of like Bono is trying to keep me honest by saying that while I'm at it, I better not do it as if I were trying to help Him or something... it's like, "nah, man - God is extremely powerful and it's completely nuts for us to think that He needs our help in making Himself known," you know what  I mean?

 

I think that God definitely wants us to go and make disciples because He told us to do that (Matt. 28: 19-20); I think He definitely wants us to be prepared to preach the Word in season and out of season, because He encouraged Timothy to do that through the inspired writer Paul (2 Timothy 4:2); and I think He definitely wants us to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth, because He actually told us that we would as a statement of fact (Acts 1:6).    
 

But at the same time, I don't think God ever needs our help as if He were somehow incapable of showing the world who He is on his own, or that He somehow needs us to do this favor for Him because He's getting old and tired and all the commotion in the world is making Him overwhelmed so He needs people like us who have all the right answers and all the right cliche catch phrases like "God is my co-pilot," or "God is my home-boy," or something absurd like that to save the world.  
 

Give me a break, man - do you really think God would even want to be those things?
 

I think God wants us to tell others about Himself only because we love Him (2 Corinthians 5:14-15), and only because it would be our greatest joy to do so (1 John 1:4), and only because our satisfaction in knowing Him is only augmented the more we share Him with others (Philippians 1:4b-5, 4:1).

It's interesting because Bono then goes on to say, "I got to stand up to ego but my ego is not really the enemy. It's like a small child crossing an eight lane highway, on a voyage of discovery."

And man alive, do I ever feel like that at times! Sometimes it's like I can be so stubborn in pursuing things that occasionally I bet people start to wonder if I'm doing it just because I'm prideful (and I suppose that that vice might seep into it occasionally), but in my mind it's really just that I'm trying to accomplish what I set out to do because I'm inspired to do so, and because I love it. That's all.

And then the song says this:

"Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels. Josephine be careful of small men with big ideas."

That's funny because Bono is a rock star and because Napoleon was short but he had big ideas and because Josephine was his girl and together they sure had one heck of a love story.

Bono is a guy with big ideas, he's the kind of guy that'll go crazy if he can't work towards them. In another one of his songs from this same album after he remarks that "every generation gets a chance to change the world," he asks, "Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear?" (See 1 John 4:16-21). This question is then coupled along with the surprising statement: "The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear."

The truth is that love is often the most ridiculous way. It's often "not a hill, it's a mountain," but it's the best way, it's the perfect way, and it's the eternal way (1 Corinthians 13).

It's so cool then how he ends this song. He's like:

Let's shout until the darkness squeezes sparks of light!

Freak yeah. haha.


Picture Cited: http://www.neatorama.com/2012/03/23/the-10-greatest-love-affairs-in-history/

 

Song Smorgasbord

There was a really cool Indie band I used to listen to a lot in college called The Format and one of my favorite songs is “On you Porch” from their Snails EP. Some of my favorite few lines from this song go like this:

So now here I sit

In a hotel off of Sunset

My thoughts bounce off 

Of Sam's guitar

And that's that's the way it's been

Ever since we were kids but now

Now we've got something to prove

And then the chorus goes like this...

Cause what's left to lose

I've done enough

And if I fail well then I fail
But I gave it a shot

And these past three years
I know they've been hard

But now it's time to get out
Of the desert and into the sun

Even if it's alone

...And see, that was what I felt like right before I got commended to the Colombian mission field back in 2009... It was like I had something to prove and there wasn't a thing that anyone could do to keep from doing it.

Now though, the same lead vocalist from this band has turned pop and a few of the lyrics from his main song with his new band in their most recent album called "Some Nights" go like this:

Some nights, I stay up
Cashing in my bad luck
Some nights, I call it a draw
Some nights, I wish that
My lips could build a castle
Some nights, I wish
They'd just fall off

But I still wake up,
I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I'm still not sure
What I stand for oh
What do I stand for?
What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don't know anymore...

And to be quite honest, a lot of times I feel the same way now.

Over two years time I went from being loved more than I've ever felt before to being despised more than I've ever felt before (and this by the same person), and over one year's time I went from seeing her literally every day to now seeing her occasionally as a ghost in my sleep and still not being sure what I stand for anymore. Do I stand up for my love for her? Do I stand up for the truth of what happened? Do I stand up for what I see when I look into my nephew (and/or nieces) eyes?

It's kind of funny cause all the Indie folks on YouTube have been like up in arms about how The Format was such a better band then Fun., and then all the Pop fans that have now somehow stumbled across The Format have been reading the Indie people's comments and are like: "Both are different music ventures and don't need to be compared to each other because they are both great in their own ways. So every one please get over yourselves (Aj Lewis)"... haha, that's kind of funny because it's so true.

...It's sort of crazy though how a song about uncertainty can get 47,264,452 hits on YouTube while a song by the same artist about determination only gets 497,343 (OOOOOk, Fine. I know that the kick-ass video and vocals in Some Nights might have at least a little bit to do with that haha...).

But anyway, as Switchfoot says, (and as I consider to be some of the most descriptive lyrics of postmodernism I've ever heard),... "See opinions are easier to swallow than facts, the grey instead of the whites and the blacks, if you shoot it too straight it won't come back, we're selling the news"..."Substance, oh substance, where have you been? You've been replaced by the masters of spin who write good looking books and write history in. We're selling the news"..."When nothing is sacred there's nothing to lose, when nothing is sacred all is consumed. We're still on the air, it must be the truth. We're selling the news"..."I wanna believe you, I wanna believe, but everything is in-between. The fact is fiction. The fact is fiction. I wanna believe you, I wanna believe, but everything I see is greed. The fact is fiction. Suspicion is the new religion."

 
...And in a lot of ways that's a pretty noble religion, right? I mean it's not condescending in any way, it's really politically correct, and when it comes right down to it - what it actually ends up being is a way of life that extremely tolerant and all-inclusive.

Awesome.

See, while a lot of people may think that there are a lot of religions that may be right; at the same time - the only religion in a lot of people's minds that is definitely wrong, is the one that says that IT is the only one that is right... Because naturally, some may say, that's what makes the proponent of it something like a "sociopath" or a "narcissist" or an "arrogant, pugnacious, religious prick"... or something like that.

...And let me just say that I don't really like the word "religion" anyway because it has a connotation of being something that you have to do as a human to find favor with God (and I believe that to be completely anti-Biblical), and so in that sense - yes. I agree that anyone who thinks that they are the ones that came up with the ultimate religious truth would be considered pretty straight up arrogant.

Because that's impossible.

...But what I also believe (and this is the belief that ultimately matters)... what I really believe is that there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to make it to God (Ephesians 2:8) (because if we could then that would give us a reason for boasting (Ephesians 2:9)), and that actually, what is really the case is that we have been saved entirely by grace through faith as a gift from God, exclusively in Jesus Christ, who is the only way, truth, and life (Ephesians 2:5,8, John 14:6).

And I believe that.

I believe it to the extent that while I may not be 100% certain about everything else in my life - I believe that I have been found in Christ. And what is more is that I believe that that discovery has been brought about not because of a righteousness of my own, but it's been brought about because of a righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. A faith in Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:9).

But on top of that, let me add this:

I still don't consider myself perfect.

I still don't consider myself to have arrived at my final goal.

Just like Paul said to the Church in Philippi as he was being held hostage for sharing the gospel, "Brothers and sisters, I still do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14)...

So yeah - that's basically what I wanted to share, and in conclusion let me mention a few more lines that have been going through my mind recently from one of those big time Jesus groups Called Hillsong United in a song entitled Hosanna. Some of the lyrics for their final bridge go like this, and I just think they're pretty awesome...

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity

Let that be my cry.

Dumb Dodge Dart

On the 18th of January of 2010 I inherited my dad’s relic Dodge Dart. It was the car I grew up in practically since my dad bought it before I was born, and it was the car I first learned how to drive in so I guess that gives me some sort of special affinity towards it or something, I don’t know. Its straight 6 engine makes it run like a truck and its ample room and positioning of parts under the hood makes it an ideal car to work on whenever it breaks down.

It’s also fairly large and so it’s great for transporting both stuff and people - I think the record is that I’ve had about 10 people inside of it at one time but that’s not including the outside for example, or in the trunk, which people have ridden in as well, like say when we’re going on a really short ride or something and we keep the trunk open.




There are times when it runs like a charm (or a lucky charm rather) and it feels great to speed along the open road with your elbow positioned so perfectly on the ledge of the open window and the wind in your face.

The kink in the steering, the 3rd gear that’s positioned where the 4th should be, and the rattling convulsions that the car breaks into whenever it hits about 65 mph keeps things interesting, and at least it feels like you’re actually driving the thing as opposed to some of these perfectly calibrated cars where the automatic transmission and cruise control will make you fall asleep faster than a Sunday morning sermon - if you’re not the one that’s preaching it that is.

One of the biggest bummers besides the fact that it drinks way to much gas ,

is that it doesn't have a CD player, which is always like one of those ‘if only’ disappointments you think about whenever you’re on a road trip. It doesn’t have any A/C either, which would be nice in San Jose, but I mean come on, you can’t be too picky.

And then there’s the times that is breaks down...

I remember a trip from Bogota once with 4 of my good friends where the car decided to get a flat tire, overheat its engine, and have its exhaust fall off all within the same trip!

And as for getting stuck in the mud – boy oh boy.

The first incident wasn’t so bad and it was actually kind of fun because it was right after youth group and it was really close to town so even though it was raining and it was like 10 o’clock at night, I rounded up all my friends and we all goofed around and made jokes as we got covered in mud while we unsuccessfully tried to push it out… no big deal.That night we all walked home and the next day I asked some random guy with a pick up truck to haul me out. He did, and I gave him 7 bucks and that was all there was to it.


The second time was a little more interesting because we got stuck a little further out of town after we had just visited an indigenous community and we had offered to take a guy and a girl that we didn’t know, back to town with us. We got stuck so bad and my car is so heavy that there was no way we could push it out so we just called a friend to try and get him to get someone who had something with 4 wheel drive to come and fetch us. In the mean time, we got to talk to this couple that we had just met and share the gospel with them. And, incidentally - this couple turned out to become pretty good friends of ours as time went on, and if you’ve read my last blog – they are actually the ones that I got the privilege to marry a few months back.

That evening, our friend in charge of pleading our case with any 4 wheel drive trucker he could find never could find anyone who was willing to come out and help us just because it was starting to rain and it was getting too late for anyone in their right mind to be willing to do anything like that. That was disappointing, but we didn’t let it get to us, and so we just walked back in the dark and pouring rain and waited until next day when I convinced someone to help me out by showing him a couple bills equivalent to about 20 American dollars.

The 3rd getting stuck instance however – now that was no joke. This time I was on my way back from a fishing trip about two hours out of town in the middle of nowhere with 5 good friends and we got stuck in some of the worst mud known to mankind. The thing about it was, that even though there were six of us who were able bodied enough to push and pry and give it our best shot, we were also all really tired from the night before (and kind of even tired of each other too haha) and we hadn’t eaten anything very significant the whole time we were on the trip and so I guess we were just a lot more prone to getting really ticked off with each other and any kind of conflict that we could get ourselves into.

And we got into one.

And we did everything we could.

We used boards, shovels, rocks, logs, jacks - you name it. We tried pushing it forwards, it would go nowhere. We tried pushing it backwards, it would go nowhere.

We tried lifting it up and putting rocks and boards underneath the tires to give it some traction – it wouldn’t get any.

Finally I was just so stressed out with all the tension going on that I got out of the car and started walking to the nearest road to see if any truck would pass by that could help us. The thing was, on our 2 hour trip out to the lake in the first place, we had only seen like 1 car the whole way and maybe 2 or 3 motorcycles, and so the odds of me finding a truck with 4 wheel drive and a driver who would be willing to help us – man, that was like trying to find a needle in a haystack or something (and whoever even came up with that saying I don’t know, but it’s a good one even though I don’t get why in the world there would be a needle in a haystack or why anyone would care – but maybe that’s the point).

Anyways, my friend Franklin he was like – what the heck are you doing man? You can’t just walk away like that – there’s no way you’ll be able to find a pick-up truck. We got to work together and do something, we gotta keep trying… and so a little reluctant to obey him - I did. Just because he was right and well, even though I really do not like getting into conflicts with people and I knew that we would keep fighting and insulting each other no matter what - regardless, I turned around and went back to the car and we got after it again.

So let me tell you about it: it was a battle of inches. One board here, another log there, another rock under that thing… and I would floor it! …3 inches.

Ok, we would say - let’s try going backwards: one jack here, another log to give us some leverage there, and everybody push while I floor it!!! 5 inches. 3 back to where we started from, BUT - 2 more in the opposite direction which would potentially give us a few more inches if we tried pushing it forward again.

… And about another hour and a half of this until finally we were able to back the car out enough of the mud hole so that we could line up some boards and logs up properly enough to give it our all or nothing shot and… VROOOOOOM!!! The car peeled out of the mud like it was nobody’s business and slid around on firm ground while the muck on the tires went flying everywhere. I couldn’t see it because I was the one putting the pedal to the medal, but it must have been the most beautiful thing to watch in the whole world, and I could feel it.

I guess you could say that at that instance in which we had previously all had urges of wanting to kill each other… when we finally saw that we had managed to get that dumb car out of that slimy mud hole man - and that WE were the ones who did it, US - the six great amigos – boy, our emotions did a total 180 right then and I don’t believe anyone could have loved my friends more than I did at that very moment. I could have kissed them NOT!!! Gross, I would never kiss a guy - that’s disgusting. Unless I was like in an Arab country or something, then I guess maybe I would you know –like to be culturally relevant or something?

But anyways, what I’m trying to say is that because of having to struggle through something together, I started to love my friends a little more than what I had before, and it was precisely because I had to struggle with them that I loved them – that they didn’t just let me walk away... and for crying in the mud! I mean it’s almost the most ridiculous thing in the world, but I even started liking my piece of junk car a little more too! Isn’t that crazy?

Even though it was specifically because of it that we got into that whole ridiculous mess of a mud hole to begin with (naturally the driver had nothing to do with it cough, cough)... for some reason on the 2 hour drive back to town I kinda started feeling a little more fond of my bulky blue, straight 6, 4 on the floor, gas guzzling, rattling convolusioned 79 dumb Dodge Dart.

And in all of this entire story, well, I'm sorry that I've been so long in getting to the point, but what I'm wanting to talk about has to do with Jacob and how he wrestled with God and how he didn’t give up on the struggle he had with Him until it was daybreak and God called 'uncle' and Jacob got a blessing.

If you want to read about this story, I would encourage you to do so. It’s found in Genesis 32, and the main point that I want to make is as follows: If I, after having struggled with my old car that isn’t worth much at all started to feel a little more fond of it - how much more fond, or in love rather, do you think we would be with God (who is worth far more than anything we could ever imagine), if we just didn’t give up on our relationship with Him even when we had to struggle through some pretty difficult things? I think it’s actually that God wants us to struggle with Him and that if we don’t want to struggle with Him, well, He won’t make us - but it’s far better if we do because maybe then He'll bless us.

The apostle Paul had this mentality concerning the things that he struggled with here on earth. He wasn't complacent, and he wasn't going to give up on his drive to know Christ and to make Him known until the day he died. To the church in Philippi he said the following, "Not that I have already obtained all of this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14).

I really like how he says, "I press on to take hold of that which Christ Jesus took hold of me." God is the one who saved him, Christ Jesus is the one that took hold of him, but here it seems like Paul is saying that he is the one holding on. Holding on to what? His salvation perhaps? Granted - he, or you, or I, or anyone else can never earn our salvation through our own efforts, and I don't believe that we can ever lose it either, but we can definitely take hold of the salvation that we have attained through Christ, and perhaps we can struggle with God as we try to understand more of it. Perhaps in the process we will be blessed because of it - perhaps many nations will be blessed because of it as well (Genesis 12:2-3). In fact, that was the whole promise that was given to Abraham that was actually starting to take affect through the life of Jacob as we start to see in Genesis 32.

Jacob was later named Israel, and it was then through Israel that the whole world was blessed. How? Namely through Israel's decendant - Jesus of Nazareth (and it's kind of funny to say it that way because actually Jesus, being God, was the one that created Jacob and was also in fact the one that wrestled with him so it's just kind of weird to think about Jesus as being his decendant haha). Jesus blessed the world by offering to all who live in it, salvation by faith through grace (Ephesians 2:8). We who have accepted this salvation can bless others by sharing it with them. And who is Isael today? Who are the true heirs of Abraham? Galatians 3:28-29 says that it doesn't matter if we are Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female - if we belong to Christ then WE, US - the millions of great amigos called Christians around the world, are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

What promise?

The promise to be a blessing to many nations (Genesis 12:2-3).

I'd say that God's blessing given to us for the world is something worth struggling for.

Yeah?